LIFE (Keiko Suenobu) Midori x Manami - Pinkie Promises Chapter 1
by NicohakuU
Summary: A story of friends growing up close and relying to each other in the twists of hard Japanese school life. Soon Midori Iwamoto, our hot headed heroine, realizes something more there behind the affectionate and pure will to protect her treasure of friend, her everything, from anything that could hurt Manami.


Title: Pinkie Promises

Pairing/ Main Characters: Midori Iwamoto / Anzai Manami

Fandom: LIFE, originally a manga authored by Keiko Suenobu, then later was realized the Jdrama counterpart based on the manga.

Genre: Drama, femslash romance, angst and sometimes a glimpse of comedy.

Age Rating: +13 usually, +15 at the highest.

Warnings: A lot swearing might occur time to time. This is a fanfic involving two girls eventually creating romantic feelings for each other which will lead to fluff, kissing and embracing. No smut. Therefore, if girlxgirl isn't your thing or if you hate the pairing, back off!

Note: Some parts of the original Japanese drama plot that this is based on, might be altered a little. Scenes and explanations on Midori's behalf added. I write in third person in Midori's view most of time, on rare occasions in Manami's too.

I am a learning Finnish fanfic writer, so I hope you can understand that my grammar might not be flawless as the one of native English person's.

******Disclaimer**: I do not own LIFE -series or any of the related characters that were created by Keiko Suenobu (C). This fanfiction is non-profit.

The First Chapter: **A day of ordinary - the same tiring faces**

**"Rrrriiiiinng! ****,****"** chimed the greatest, most ear splitting device that has been sure to kill adolescence's hearing every-single-morning, for now, more than six years. After a few minutes, no reactions were anywhere to be seen. As time elapsed, only some vague mumbling arose under the blankets... Eventually, when that goddamn irritating contraption's uproar did not seem to give up on its targeted mission, better let the fist speak for itself to make it silent. Not yet... Just another moment... The next five minutes were surrounded by an eerie silence. The alarm clock apparently did not have an impact on the sleepyhead. However, someone else seemed to be slowly losing their patience with the lack of action happening behind the teenager's door. In annoyance, this someone slammed the door wide open and set their eyes upon this lazy youngster.

"Why in the earth must you be rushed constantly...!" the mother of the teenager grumped loudly at the room's entrance.

The mother leered tiringly her own daughter's chaos driven paradise: Clothes thrown all around the floor, and all those stuff - no glimpse of organizing sense. She picked up a couple of pieces of junk and moved them onto her daughter's working chair that stood next to the left wall on door's direction. She was completely fed up with nagging on the daily basis about the same things, consequently as no effort was taken on the daughter's side.

"Listen young lady, the time is about to be high for you to get ready unless you want to miss your bus like every other day. And oh, dear gods, that you must laze around like that! Stand up...!", so got the mother angered by her daughter's disregard that she decided to take on harder actions by shaking up her daughter's side. Although for all that, younger one yet refused to stand up, and instead swiped with her upper side's hand as sign to stop.

"Mom, in a moment! Do ya always have to blow up, every time if I'm not doing something in an instant?," growled angrily the youngster back.

So decided the mother delay their conversation for later; perhaps at the time after school since she certainly knew that her daughter detested early wake-ups as well she acted like an angry bee at those situations. Overlooking these problems, she stomped out of the room to not to disturb the drowsy one from preparing herself.

"Blah!", winced the long black haired girl behind her mom's back.

_Can there be a more pleasant morning than thiiis?~ _

_**Iwamoto Midori**_, 12 years old, dragged herself like a zombie out of her room. As her first priority she found her way, finally, into the bathroom while glancing at the mirror there. Who IS this messy headed, circles having, dead-looking ghost watching in her reflection? Without a further ado, she went on taking a shower in order to remove the last bits of sleepiness from her mind. Then she did her hair and brushed the teeth! Urgh, now the face, at least, seems to look 'tolerable'! Her hair shined neatly after drying and combing, and their length set to almost at the point of her armpits. Lastly, she put on her school uniform as well as she braided her long hair tying it beautifully with a red ribbon. The looks: DONE! This girl with a traditional pretty face of a Japanese girl stepped into the kitchen to seek for something quick to gobble up to content up her stomach for now and some lunch for the afternoon. Her mom, sitting with her day's newspaper, gave her only one glare. Midori wasn't willing spoil her mood with pointless arguing with her before the day had even properly started so she kept herself busy with other things until the clock told that time had arrived.

"Bye! ," shouted Midori over her shoulder after getting her shows on and she flung the main door behind her

"No way! I only have four minutes to run to the bus stop! Oh shi- ," startled the young girl by seeing the numbers of time on her phone's screen. Here we go again... racing... Instead of using that slowpoke elevator, she hurried various stairs down, with her braid flowing in the air, and run as fast as she could to get on the street. Having passed the area of department houses, she noted in the distance that her bus had already stopped to take in customers. Midori launched herself like a rocket to gain on a few hundred meters there was remaining, getting out of breath a little. The black haired girl lowered her gaze embarrassed as she handed over her public transport card to the bus driver as the last person. What irritated slightly this hot temper headed girl was sly smirk from the driver when have gave her card back. Midori only turned up her nose and continued making her way through the bus looking for a vacant seat. At the back side she managed to acknowledge two rows lacking of users. This was a perfect chance...

"Hopefully no one just won't...-" her hand became nearer and nearer her targeted seat…

"Good morning Iwamoto-san~!," sing-sang the overcheerful greeting from the last row of the seats. Midori stiffened, and for her disappointment, saw the same old girl trio pretentiously smiling at her.

"- notice me", added she to her previous sentence inside of her mind, sighing deeply.

There they once again sat: Reiko, Megumi and Ritsuko - her so called 'friends', who usually spends her time with at school, although she wished them to vanish at time to time leaving her alone... Their gang included also a few more girls from the same class of Midori's but they used another bus line, fortunately! For SOME reason she couldn't be any less keen on their company. _Everything was complete bullshit of pretending. _Directly from the beginning she had that feeling that they only preserved her in their group just to look mightier and powerful in front of the other students.After moving onto junior high Iwamoto had hoped to have found some more genuine, more honest friend to her side instead of these 'teenyboppers'. Unsurprisingly, having the black longhaired girl sit down on the window seat next to her friends, they just reset their vain discussion without her. Bored wistfully, Midori only stared passing familiar street sights with her empty eyes. Her thoughts running here and there, nonetheless she knew that ordinary, gray school day is about to commence, as promised.

Soon, was Midori to be startled by the sudden twitch of the vehicle when it parked. Crowd started to stream in... One amongst them caught the attention of some students.

A dazzling looking girl, whose face always shone during her walk, enchanted even Midori's gaze to turn after her. This girl in question was also from the same class as Midori. A daughter from a remarkably rich family, Anzai Manami. Everybody seemed to envy on her wealthy lifestyle. She surely must have everything a girl in that age wished for. On usual days, she wasn't even to be seen using lower-class mode of transport, but instead, her very own private car driver brought her almost every morning in front of the school. According to the impression of her classmate that Midori had gathered over the couple of months in junior high, Anzai seemed to be determined and self-assured, even in the eyes of teachers. Additionally, Anzai was overwhelmingly beautiful with her glimmering chocolate-colored eyes that fascinated people around her. Behind her maroon colored, silky, shoulder reaching hair, she smiled after having found a place near her friends. Midori probably never could end up in her accompany, with this influential beauty.

For some odd reason, the braided black haired girl found herself to have ogled Anzai a little more time than she should have. 'Grhm...' Back to the reality...

" Just look at that disgusting hyping," insult of Manami was blurted by a girl that first greeted Midori, the leader of girl gang. Her face was slightly thick in features such as eyebrows and cheeks and she had a dark corkscrewed curly hair.

"She must think, as a spoiled brat daughter of her father, to be some kind the center of universe.", accompanied Ritsuko as she clearly continued aiming her mocking at miss Anzai. Ritsuko was a tall girl with a long darkish brown hair. The murmur amongst the girl in the back row rose when the third girl, Megumi, added some fuel to the flame by jesting something. Suddenly, they all burst out in volume raising laugh.

"What the heck are you all laughing off for? ," tried Midori next to them get a little grasp of the situation going on.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing!", replied Reiko with amused voice.

Surprise, naturally no one was willing to tell her anything. For the rest of the school trip she sat with her arms crossed while others had damn much fun by gossiping. She only could suppose what was this "fun" related with or more precisely: WHO. Reiko and her crew had united together against the popular seeming Anzai for odd reasons. Their hate for the girl only appeared to be jealousy over her beauty and wealth. There could also be more hidden personal affairs, about which Midori had no clue at all, and better off, she didn't give a flying damn for arguments between her classmates. It was preferable not to take any sides and stay out of issues that didn't concern her. In spite of all that, Midori would have wanted just once to be able to keep track on their conversation so that she didn't have to be like dumbfounded all the time. As their ride was about to leave them at certain place, this snappy girl was sure to step out of the bus amongst the first students...

There awaited the large school building welcoming everyone. Midori, determined, zoomed past ahead way before Reiko and the others would catch up on her. With intense speed she went upstairs first and then turned to right where her classroom is located. When she stood under the class sign 7-3, she steered and powerfully moved aside the sliding door. Couple of young boys gave her weird looks, but would she pay attention to some always 'left behind' boys, whose world supposedly span around some cars and childish video games? Showing irritated face, she leaned onto her desk, wishing that those morons, of who she has to address as her friends, wouldn't have the same class than the one she did. But, come on! Where on this wide earth could you get rid of your classmates for a minute?! To kill some time, she started unpack her writing tools and notebooks while, without a doubt, horribly familiar sounds echoed from the corridor. A huge noisy girl crew couldn't mean anything else but her classmates gossiping on their object of hate, Anzai-san.

Pretending as if Midori didn't exist at all, they kept discussing without any regard to her. In a way though, she was pretty used to such treatment, which might cause her to treat other people nastily. All of her childhood energetic and casually cheerful seemed to cover up when she didn't have any chance to share events and feelings packed up in her heart with anyone. To be truthful, she actually didn't have any true friend she could open up to and be herself. Now all of her happiness had changed place with frustration and hatred. Deep down, Iwamoto Midori wasn't even either very unsocial nor a pouting loner. It was only due to the ill atmosphere that drove her in such state. Time to time she felt like she wanted to scream inside her head, ' Does anybody notice me?!'

How to let go of these isolating chains? - she needed a savior.

Crushed, girl with a long black braid pushed her head underneath her hands to lock up all the voices outside.

"Hey, ev'rything all right?," someone of the idiotic boys, went on poking this girl in reeeally bad mood on the back.

"Leave me be!", snapped the hot tempered girl underneath her arms without moving on inch. At least they could figure out to have a good distance from the angry bee!

" Good morning miss Iwamoto, but school isn't supposed to be a dormitory, eh? ", retorted sarcastically a voice that could belong to an older man. First the boys touching on her with their fingers and then even their class teacher did the same, except with a pointer.

Frowning, she finally raised her head for her geekyprof-looking classroom teacher when of course couple of stupid giggles was heard from the back row of seats. Luckily Midori' was so fortune' to be sitting directly in front of him where she could be observed all the time. What's more, she was suppressed by the current of mocking by classmates. She traded back a firm look at the behind of her, and so they would chicken out.

"Good morning students. Is there anyone absent? And now I'm not going to count in those who are mentally absent!," shot their teacher a-very-lame-joke,for a change. Everyone kept silent, and true it was - no one was absent today.

"Apparently no student. Excellent! Next there is an announcement for all those in the seventh grade," this middle aged man held one note in his hand looking through his round glasses. His voice reading the message was severely nasal,

"Before closing our doors for the Summer vacation, our school annually organizes a trip for every seventh grade student in some cultural place where everyone can enjoy each other's company and eat lunch together. Thus, you have time make acquaintances and get to know better your classroom mates. A good atmosphere in each class is extremely important, which we have to work hard on! Here have some further information of the special day in the handout."

"Yeah yeah, surely they care so much...," commented Midori in her mind and yawned when her teacher finished his announcement.

"Well, since we have our own 'Miss Sunshine' over here, she might would take on the task of sharing all these handouts gladly!," said the teacher with mockery towards unimpressed Iwamoto.

Midori stood up stick straight and franticly snatched the handout of her teacher's hand. With angered face she shared them to everyone. Reiko, Megumi and Ritsuko from the back row grinned slyly as Midori became the target of humiliation. Amongst the last ones to be given the handout sat Manami. Unlike the others, she didn't seem to take in part of any mocking that went on behind Iwamoto's back.

"Thanks," said Manami quietly with gorgeous smile on her face.

Well, for a long time she hadn't heard that word coming out of anyone's mouth for something she had done. However, she couldn't answer back her with anything more than with a pitiful millimeter lifting of her corner of mouth, after which she returned to her seat.

Immediately came up the lesson of ' young Miss Iwamoto's very favorite subjects', mathematics. Their professor-geekish teacher would habitually blabber like most of the time almost in ecstasy state about the day's theory side more than halfway through the lesson. Until, they had hardly much time to do actual exercises. Midori desperately would have longed for help with exercises, but usually all of teacher's efforts were wasted on taming the girl in the back row. Towards the end of lessons she didn't feel like anymore asking for help. As far as their teacher was concerned, he didn't care whether she would do well in his subject, or in school, in general.

When the clock hit one o'clock precisely, the whole hour had only spent on lying lazy without doing anything. And of course there would be a huge pile of homework to do. Midori rather screamed in excitement to give away some sleep to solve all these lovely, tricky math exercises!

Third lesson was all about mother language - essay writing. Girl with black braid was relieved that different teacher was now listing different topics on blackboard they should write about. She wouldn't have endured any bit longer of her classroom teacher's pissing off in front of everyone. Then onto coming up with topics...

At first Midori hadn't realized to have pondered about them too much, because already a quarter had elapsed from the lesson during which they had to finish their essays. Rest of time had to be used more on diligent working. The fastest had theirs up way before the end of the lesson and the others gave them right before last minute. Midori still had some writing unfinished and that's why she begged to continue it for a small minute since not many sentences were remaining. Like a miracle the female teacher was merciful and permitted it while watching her to finish up.

" Iwamoto-san, we are going to visit the restroom and then come to pick you up to eat lunch together!," Reiko motioned at the entrance of classroom without waiting for Midori's reply and cruelly left her on her own to write. For her surprise, she didn't notice before that there was another girl doing the same as her. One row behind her on the right side Anzai's paper rustled as she hurriedly wrote. However yet she was some seconds quicker than Midori to finish up hers and handle the essay to the teacher. Teacher said goodbye to the girls that we're packing their tools up.

"I think this was dropped by you," Manami kindly handed her one pencil and a note sheet.

"Umm thanks. You didn't need to", Midori replied with a shy tone.

"Woaa! What a lovely weather it is today! Aren't you too going to have your lunch outside? You totally should!" Manami's joyful voice broke the silence as she watched out of the class window.

As for Midori she didn't know how to act or answer in this situation because she wasn't aware where her 'friends' group would set their place. She decided to conform along with the other girl.

" Well, I think I have to go for now. See you again!," the girl with cute face gave her farewell by waving one of her hand while holding couple of books with the other.

Only you can wonder if her boring presence had drove that kind person away. Anzai, who didn't even know her personally, treated her a hundred times nicer than her own friends. This raises a question - why the hell is she stuck with them? On the other hand, she had to be careful not to take too much contact with Anzai since instant bitter feedback from Midori's friends would wait there afterwards. She'd become their number one eyesore if she'd continue befriending with their main villain.

Wistfully, Midori took a few steps out of the classroom. She moved her gaze towards the direction where Manami had dashed to. To the next corridor corner. Before having thought of following Anzai, that idea could be flushed down from toilet as Midori noted a couple of friends joining the girl's company there. Like always they changed delighted regards composed with sweet giggles as they told of the day events each other. Soon they were to disappear together with their lunch boxes ready for the meal time. Midori, however, on the contrary stayed loyally waiting for her so called friends to return from their restroom adventure. After waiting more than 5 minutes in front of the classroom, her suspects began to emerge in her mind when no traces from girls were anywhere to be seen. Why in the hell did they keep loitering?

Then her mind slipped out of patience and so she decided to check for herself where those morons were. At girls' toilet room? No one there...

"That's it!," once again was she completely forgotten from the group? Searching point number two shall be the great greenery backyard behind the school building. Midori observed on tens different aged teen-age groups enjoying themselves of the splendid sunny weather. She sought and sought for those had the nerve to abandon her, going through the whole greenery until one sight turned her blood boiling. Her eyes were narrowed as her grip on the bag handle tightened. Under on the trees, her eyes were set on particular three persons, as those had their most wonderful time without informing her at all. Furiously she couldn't just stand there but violently stomped upon their fun pick-nick!

"Why didn't you guys share a word with me that you'd be here?! We were supposed to meet there in our classroom after you had come back from emptying your bladders!," the girl with a braid burst her rage before the eyes of sitting girls. They only raised their eye brows questioning and then shot some smirks.

"But as a clever girl like you could find us! Everything's fine so what's with that blast of anger Iwamoto-chan?", said Ritsuko just mischievously back to her.

"Trash talk, everything definitely is NOT fine! Why does it always have to be me who's an outsider and an object of humiliation in our class?! No one cares about my feelings!," Midori's unnerved and she just let her all anger piled up fire out from her heart. She wasn't far from letting couple of tears pop out from her eyes.

"Hey, it isn't our fault if you especially want to isolate yourself from the others. You're just different from us. If you're not pleased to be in our company, it's not our problem, got it!? ," hissed Reiko slamming her words in Midori's face.

For a moment she tried to protest these selfish girls by shooting a firm look to Reiko's eyes. All along she had known it. She was nothing more than air for them. She couldn't block her feelings any more, neither her grudge or tears that flowed painfully on her face. She ran as far as she ever could go away from them trying to prevent her tears to be shed by rubbing her sleeves against her eyes. For the rest of the school day she gloomily stayed in background._ All alone._

The last lessons felt crippling and she could feel the cold waves in her spine telling her that some persons might be planning on revenge behind her. She returned from school even more nervous than in the morning. And before her mother could open her mouth to shower her nags on Midori, she slammed her room's door quickly. The young seventh grader collapsed on in front of the door, her head crouching on her knees heavily.

"Midori!," knocked the sound, but her mom calling her wasn't able to enter as Midori sat as an obstacle," What has gone into you? Nowadays you can hardly be seen on good mood! I'd want to talk with if you'd-."

"Not now, mom!," Midori yelled back with a slightly sobbing voice.

"You don't seem to ever have time to solve any problems you have. If there is something bothering you then you should... ," blah, blah and blah Midori locked up her ears listening to this same old nagging.

Mothers... They always spent their strength on minding a couple dirty pieces of clothing on the floor or unorganized mess, but they couldn't see the relevant problems hiding. Problems when people discriminated her or how lonely she in her heart. It felt like the person who had brought her in this cruel world wouldn't care how the whole school including the teachers and students treated her. Those stares everyday made her crumble and depress even a girl with such a strong will. She didn't desire anything more than getting real friends, who cared for her honestly.

To let out her ill feelings, she turned on her cd-player to play her favorite music loudly. As for home work she tried to get rid of finishing them as fast as she could though sorrow burdened her mind. In the evening she fell on her bed followed by exhausted tears before letting herself to sleep. Probably the same nightmarish events from the afternoon would repeat themselves even worse in her dreams. You couldn't escape the loneliness. Those chains in locked up her heart so that she couldn't bring her real self up to the others. If things carried on like this for longer time, would everyone eventually close their ears from hearing her calls of help?

_**The end of the first chapter.**_


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